LoBot

My brother lives at a place called LoBot. Lobot is this very cool live/work space warehouse in West Oakland. They have a gallery and sometimes have shows. I had been there a few times before my brother even lived in the bay area and some a some bands play. It seemed like a cool place in a not so nice industrial area of Oakland, California. Each person that lives there has their own room, I spent most of the time in my brother's room...

...or in the kitchen. The kitchen ins a big space a with a couple refrigerators and lots of cabinets and a nice big table with lots of fun chairs. Through the doors where it says "enchanted forest" is a fully equipped screen printing studio. I wanted to use it but never got around to it. To the left of the studio is the "hang room" a large space with sofas and games and to the left of that is the "music room" a sound-proofed room full of instruments and equipment where anyone can go in and jam or record or practice or whatever they want to do.

Some of the instruments look like they haven't been touched in a while. There was one guitar covered in dust and had no strings, but don't worry there were plenty of functional instruments. Recently my brother and a couple of his roommates have been playing reggae and one night we stayed up late in the kitchen discussing reggae and ska and if they should be a cover band playing reggae songs or covering songs and turning them into reggae.

When you go past the kitchen you walk back into a long curvy hallway covered in art and posters with various looking doors off to the sides. Sometimes a door is open and you get a peek into one of these doors and get a small glimpse into the life of the person that lives on the other side.

This is my brother's door, I love that it's pink. Above his door to the right is a huge pink painting of Willie Nelson. I'm a sure someone who once lived there made it. All of the people that live there are artists. There are 13 people that live there give or take a few because there are always sub-letters and guests.

A few weeks ago there were so many people staying there that they put up pictures with each persons name, so that everyone knew who was living/staying there. I think this was while this group of Germans part of a German art collective were there. It is not uncommon for them to have visiting artists stay with them, there is even a "visting artist's studio" for them to work and live in that is right of the gallery. While I was there there were two guys from Seattle visiting.